Ukraine Russia war: North Korean troops ‘already in Ukraine’ as Kyiv drafts 160,000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the West should admit Russia has “won” in Georgia and is on its way to doing the same in Moldova unless Western rhetoric against crossing Moscow’s red lines was dropped.

“We have to recognise in Georgia for today Russia won. First, they took part of Georgia, then they changed policy, the government. And now [Georgia] has a pro-Russian government,” he said in English in a video released on Wednesday.

He added that Russia was “on the way” to doing the same in Moldova. “And they will do, if of course the West will not stop dialogue [against] crossing of red lines,” Zelenskiy said.

Russia has claimed Britain is using a Black Sea grain corridor to deliver arms to Ukraine, after denying London’s allegations that Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports had disrupted crucial grain supplies for other countries.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that an increase in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was delaying vital aid reaching the Palestinians and stopping crucial grain supplies from being delivered to the global south.

The United Nations said last week that Russian attacks on Ukrainian Black Sea ports had damaged six civilian vessels as well as grain infrastructure since 1 September, calling the ramp-up in strikes “distressing”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Starmer’s allegations that Moscow was damaging global food security with such strikes were wide of the mark.

“Such baseless yet thunderous outrage from London once again confirms just the opposite: the direct involvement of the UK in supplying arms to the Kiev regime using the Black Sea sea corridor,” she alleged in a press briefing.

Zakharova referred to what she said was recent video evidence concerning the port of Yuzhny, in Ukraine’s Odesa region, and purported arms supplies published by Russia’s Ministry of Defence.

Her claims could not be independently verified and there was no immediate response to them from London.

Germany discussed with China findings by NATO and the United States that North Korean soldiers are in Russia, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

“You can assume that we have discussed the issue with the Chinese side,” the spokesperson said.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko discussed the Ukraine crisis in talks on Wednesday and Wang reaffirmed Beijing’s strong ties with Moscow, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Both exchanged views on the crisis but the ministry statement did not disclose details of the discussion.

Wang reiterated China and Russia’s strong relations, that were not affected by “changes in the international situation”.

“Both sides should make joint efforts to coordinate cooperation in various fields and exchanges at all levels,” he said, without elaboration.

Russia’s RIA agency first reported that Rudenko was in Beijing for the meeting.

The visit takes place as Russia’s war in Ukraine appeared to take a dangerous new turn, with NATO and South Korea expressing alarm that North Korean troops could soon be joining Moscow’s side.

Rudenko has been involved in developing Russian ties with North Korea after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022. He was also a member of the Russian delegations at peace negotiations with Ukraine early in the war.

A Russian court has fined Google $2.5 decillion for allegedly blocking pro-Kremlin propaganda on YouTube.

The fine, which is the equivalent of $2.5 trillion trillion trillion, is the result of four years of accumulated fines, with the figure currently doubling every week under Russian law.

The original penalty of 100,000 rubles was handed to the US tech giant in 2020 after the media outlets Tsargrad and RIA FAN won lawsuits related to restrictions on their YouTube channels.

Anthony Cuthbertson reports:

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui will hold strategic consultations in Moscow with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced on Wednesday.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told a news briefing the North Korean minister was on her way to Moscow and that details of her talks with Lavrov, including the exact timing, would be released later.

“In accordance with the agreement reached during the Russian-Korean summit meeting in Pyongyang in June, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Choe Son Hui, is arriving in Moscow on an official visit to hold strategic consultations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov,” Zakharova said.

The visit, the minister’s second to Russia in six weeks, comes as the Russia-Ukraine war appears to have taken a dangerous new turn, with NATO and South Korea expressing alarm that North Korean troops could soon be joining in on Moscow’s side.

North Korea’s foreign minister arrived in Russia’s far east on Tuesday on her way to Moscow, Russian state media said.

The Kremlin, which on Wednesday referred a question about her visit to the foreign ministry, has said Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to meet her.

Russian government officials have said Moscow has every right to develop its relations with Pyongyang as it sees fit, including under the terms of a mutual defence clause agreed earlier this year.

The Kremlin has dismissed a report that Russia and Ukraine are in the early stages of negotiations about potentially halting airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that there were many reports out there “which have nothing to do with reality”.

The Financial Times, citing sources who it said included senior Ukrainian officials, reported that Ukraine was seeking to resume talks that had come close to an agreement in August and were mediated by Qatar.

Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Kruhliakivka in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, the RIA news agency cited Russia’s Defence Ministry as saying on Wednesday.

The battlefield report from the Russian state-owned news agency could not be independently verified.

The thousands of young soldiers North Korea has sent to Russia, reportedly to help fight against Ukraine, are mostly elite special forces, but that hasn’t stopped speculation they’ll be slaughtered because they have no combat experience, no familiarity with the terrain and will likely be dropped onto the most ferocious battlefields.

That may be true, and soon. Observers say the troops are already arriving at the front. From the North Korean perspective, however, these soldiers might not be as miserable as outsiders think. They may, in fact, view their Russian tour with pride and as a rare chance to make good money, see a foreign country for the first time, and win preferred treatment for their families back home, according to former North Korean soldiers.

“They are too young and won’t understand exactly what it means. They’ll just consider it an honor to be selected as the ones to go to Russia among the many North Korean soldiers,” said Lee Woong-gil, a former member of the same special forces unit, the Storm Corps. He came to South Korea in 2007. “But I think most of them won’t likely come back home alive.”